Escape
Klaine advent day five.
We're going all the way back with this one to take a look at how the 'When the time is right' boys are doing. Bar owner!Blaine
It's quiet. Very quiet and dark, the only light being the safety fixture on the wall above the fire door at the back of the room.
Blaine sighs and smiles a little to himself as he sits down where he stands on the cool hard floor, legs folds across each other with his hands resting on his knees.
Being here right now, like this, reminds him of a day way back when, when he would hide here behind the big, heavy curtain and sit at his piano and reflect or sometimes just wallow.
Of course, he has no need or reason for any of that now, though. The Stage hasn't been this quiet for so long now, that he's kind of forgotten what it feels like to have this slice of peace and quiet.
This escape.
Thank god for some minor refurbishment and repair work meaning that the place had to close to the public for a few days.
It's nice and different and a feeling that he must admit misses just a little, but he wouldn't change what he has for the entire world.
The bar is a famous New York hotspot now, with barely an empty chair throughout all of opening hours. They've hired more staff and security and have had the place fully rigged out with sound proof walls and roofing insulation. There is an event of some kind held at The Stage almost every other day and a waiting list up until the end of the year to book for private parties.
His husband of almost fifteen years is currently halfway in to his twelve week Broadway run, (the third role he's been offered that year) and his teenage son is following in his footsteps and has landed his first part-time role off Broadway.
Blaine's name and record label is stamped to the back of CD's belonging to some of the most talented recording artists in the world. It's safe to say that altogether they're a very, busy family with next to no time spare for the running of a bar.
They even had to find a new home in the style of an old, oversized townhouse on the Upper East Side a couple years ago; when The Stage and their rising careers were becoming too popular to house them up above it anymore.
It was sad having to leave his beloved apartment, for Blaine, but on the brighter side it was just a reflection of how far he has come in his life. A representation of all of his achievements.
Nothing moved with them that day from that apartment. All of the old furniture is still perfectly intact and in their original positions. Blaine still visits regularly, he dresses head to toe in dark clothes with a long coat and hat, slides up the back staircase without being noticed and sits in his old living room and just watches TV from time to time.
A rare piece of normalcy he gets to keep for him self.
Another glorious escape. And for no other reason than just to have some time to use and keep for his own. Some time for the fifty year old music mogul to find his younger inner self, the shy bar owner who loved a tall and beautiful stranger from afar and sang songs about him at his piano.
The memory still only seems just a stones throw away, and still the most special and prominent. No matter how many awards he wins, or how many houses he has to buy or no matter how many times he has to 'escape' like this just to feel normal again.
The most precious, most important, life changing day of his life was a New Years Eve many years ago when his husband walked into his bar and changed his life.
And everything is still so right.